Since 2005, Google Summer of Code (GSoC) has introduced new developers to open-source communities every year. Rocket.Chat is proud to be a GSoC open-source organization once again in 2020, making this our fourth year of participation. This year, we are proud to host seven official GSoC projects.
Each year, qualified applicants exceed available project slots. In order to accommodate more students and projects, our long-time community supporter, Credit Suisse, has agreed to sponsor an additional three projects this year. Thanks to the bank’s enthusiastic support, we are able to accommodate a greater number of exceptional students as part of these projects.
We interviewed several project mentors from Credit Suisse to find out about the objectives of each project and how their experience has been so far. Check it out:
1. Audio Improvements on the mobile app
- Author: Neil Agarwal
- Mentors: Nathan Khoo, Diego Mello, Djorkaeff Alexandre Youssef Muhamad
This project’s main goal is to bring the audio recording capabilities and the audio player of the Rocket.Chat’s ReactNative project to modern standards. Contributing for the first time with open-source, Nathan Khoo, a mentor from Credit Suisse, thinks that the project goes beyond building a new feature:
I feel that, as developers, we sometimes take for granted how much open-source projects can benefit an organization. This is a wonderful way for Credit Suisse to give back to the community: by helping to nurture the next generation of open-source contributors and giving them a solid foundation of the skills needed to build more complex applications. Nathan KhooEngineer at Credit Suisse
2. Add Analytics to Mobile Apps
- Author: Youssef Muhamad
- Mentors: Noorul Ameen, Diego Mello, Djorkaeff Alexandre
This project aims to enhance the overall user experience by understanding how users interact with the Rocket.Chat mobile app, such as their most-used features and favorite screens. For Noorul, an engineer at Credit Suisse and a mentor, these insights will be invaluable in redesigning the app to align with user preferences. He was impressed by the high caliber of the students participating in GSoC’s projects:
I have been positively surprised by the quality of GSoC students and their eagerness to learn new things. They take ownership of their work and reach out for help when needed. While being a mentor to students, I too have learned a few things from them. Noorul AmeenEngineer at Credit Suisse
3. Content Moderation Rocket.Chat App (Machine Learning)
- Author: Shreyansh Singh Tomar
- Mentors: John Sobrepena, Karan Bedi
As Rocket.Chat becomes the main workspace for different projects, why not improve its content moderation toolset? That’s where this project comes into the picture. Through Machine Learning, the project goal is to build an automated Content Moderation service that scans images in a chat message’s attachments and hyperlinks, to ensure that users are not exposed to content that may be harmful or offensive.
Automated content moderation software significantly alleviates the need for human content moderators. For John Sobrepena, a mentor from Credit Suisse, the project also has a significant societal benefit:
In this time of the global pandemic, it has become very evident that the effective deployment of technology, as a means to communicate and collaborate, is paramount. Human-led content moderation can be time-consuming due to the significantly large number of posts and messages that need to be reviewed every day. During my involvement with this project, I realized that content moderation can be done more efficiently using machine learning and automation, thereby contributing to a safer digital social space. John SobrepenaEngineer at Credit Suisse
At Rocket.Chat, we are delighted to have the support of Google and Credit Suisse, alongside our own open-source community members and core team mentors for this year’s GSoC. With the completion of the GSoC 2020 term in September, these projects will soon be up and running on Rocket.Chat!
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